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WHY WE ARE AT WAR 



Books by 
WOODROW WILSON 

WHY WE ARE AT WAR. 16mo 

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
Profusely illustrated. 5 volumes. 8vo 
Cloth 

Three-quarter Calf 
Three-quarter Levant 

GEORGE WASHINGTON. Illustrated. 8vo 
Popular Edition 

WHEN A MAN COMES TO HIMSELF 
16mo. Cloth. Leather 

ON BEING HUMAN 

16mo. Cloth. Leather 

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
16mo. Cloth. Leather 



HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 



WHY 
WE ARE AT WAR 

MESSAGES TO THE CONGRESS 

JANUARY TO APRIL, 1917 
BY 

WOODROW WILSON 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
WITH 

THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION OP WAR 
April 6, 1917 

AND HIS 

MESSAGE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
April 15, 1917 




HARPER fcf BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 






*$*?] 



1 



Why We are at War 



Printed in the United States of America 
Published May, 191 7 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. A World League for Peace i 

Message to the Senate, January 22, 191 7. 

II. The Severance of Diplomatic Relations 

with Germany 17 

Message to the Congress, February 3, 191 7. 

III. Request for a Grant of Power 27 

Message to the Congress, February 26, 19 17. 

IV. We Must Accept War 39 

Message to the Congress, April 2, 1917. 

V. A State of War 61 

The President's Proclamation of April 6, 191 7. 

VI. "Speak, Act, and Serve Together" ... 69 

Message to the American people, April 15, 
1917. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

This book presents in convenient form the 
memorable messages to the Congress read by- 
President Wilson in January, February, and 
April, 191 7. They should be read together, 
for only in this way is it possible to appreciate 
both the forbearance and the logic of events 
reflected in these consecutive chapters of his- 
tory. While the great war message of April 
2d is obviously the most momentous, its full 
significance is not made clear unless it is read 
as the climax of the preceding messages and 
also in connection with the President's proc- 
lamation of a state of war on April 6th and his 
message to the American people of April 15th. 
While the approval of President Wilson was 
very naturally requested and obtained for 
the publication of these messages in collected 
form, the Publishers are responsible for the 
title and for captions. They have felt that 
they are rendering a service of permanent value 
by collecting and presenting these historic 
documents in the same form in which they 
have published President Wilson's When a 
Man Comes to Himself, On Being Human, and 
The President oj the United States. 



I 

A WORLD LEAGUE FOR PEACE 

Message to the Senate 
January 22, 1917 



WHY 
WE ARE AT WAR 

i 

A WORLD LEAGUE FOR PEACE 

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

On the 1 8th of December last I addressed 
an identic note to the Governments of the 
nations now at war, requesting them to state, 
more definitely than they had yet been stated 
by either group of belligerents, the terms upon 
which they would deem it possible to make 
peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and 
of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, 
many of whose most vital interests the war 
puts in constant jeopardy. 

The Central Powers united in a reply which 
stated merely that they were ready to meet 
3 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

their antagonists in conference to discuss terms 
of peace. 



ENTENTE REPLY WAS MORE DEFINITE 

The Entente Powers have replied much more 
definitely and have stated, in general terms, 
indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply 
details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts 
of reparation which they deem to be the indis- 
pensable conditions of a satisfactory settle- 
ment. 

We are that much nearer a definite discussion 
of the peace which shall end the present war. 
We are that much nearer the discussion of the 
international concert which must thereafter 
hold the world at peace. 

In every discussion of the peace that must 
end this war it is taken for granted that that 
peace must be followed by some definite con- 
cert of power which will make it virtually im- 
possible that any such catastrophe should ever 
overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, 
every sane and thoughtful man, must take that 
for granted. 

I have sought this opportunity to address 
you because I thought that I owed it to you, 
as the council associated with me in the final 
determination of our international obligations, 

4 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

to disclose to you, without reserve, the thought 
and purpose that have been taking form in my 
mind in regard to the duty of our Government 
in these days to come when it will be necessary 
to lay afresh and upon a new plan the founda- 
tions of peace among the nations. 

DECLARES PEACE IS NOT FAR OFF 

It is inconceivable that the people of the 
United States should play no part in that great 
enterprise. ; To take part in such a service 
will be the opportunity for which they have 
sought to prepare themselves by the very 
principles and purposes of their polity and 
the approved practices of their Government, 
ever since the days when they set up a new 
nation in the high and honorable hope that 
it might in all that it was and did show man- 
kind the way to liberty. 

They cannot, in honor, withhold the service 
to which they are now about to be challenged. 
They do not wish to withhold it. But they 
owe it to themselves and to the other nations 
of the world to state the conditions under 
which they will feel free to render it. 

That service is nothing less than this — to 
add their authority and their power to the 
authority and force of other nations to guar- 

2 5 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

antee peace and justice throughout the world. 
Such a settlement cannot now be long post- 
poned. It is right that before it comes this 
Government should frankly formulate the con- 
ditions upon which it would feel justified in 
asking our people to approve its formal and 
solemn adherence to a league for peace. I am 
here to attempt to state those conditions. 

MUST NOT SERVE SELFISH AIMS 

The present war must first be ended; but 
we owe it to candor and to a just regard for 
the opinion of mankind to say that so far as 
our participation in guarantees of future peace 
is concerned it makes a great deal of difference 
in what way and upon what terms it is ended. 

The treaties and agreements which bring it 
to an end must embody terms which will 
create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and 
preserving, a peace that will win the approval 
of mankind; not merely a peace that will 
serve the several interests and immediate aims 
of the nations engaged. 

We shall have no voice in determining what 
those terms shall be, but we shall, I feel sure, 
have a voice in determining whether they 
shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees 
of a universal covenant, and our judgment 

6 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

upon what is fundamental and essential as a 
condition precedent to permanency should be 
spoken now, not afterward, when it may be 
too late. 

No covenant of co-operative peace that does 
not include the peoples of the New World can 
suffice to keep the future safe against war, 
and yet there is only one sort of peace that 
the peoples of America could join in guaran- 
teeing. 

The elements of that peace must be elements 
that engage the confidence and satisfy the 
principles of the American Governments, ele- 
ments consistent with their political faith and 
the practical convictions which the peoples of 
America have once for all embraced and under- 
taken to defend. 



WORLD ALLIANCE IS NECESSARY 

I do not mean to say that any American 
Government would throw any obstacle in the 
way of any terms of peace the Governments 
now at war might agree upon, or seek to upset 
them when made, whatever they might be. 
I only take it for granted that mere terms of 
peace between the belligerents will not satisfy 
even the belligerents themselves. 

Mere agreements may not make peace se- 
7 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

cure. It will be absolutely necessary that a 
force be created as a guarantor of the perma- 
nency of the settlement so much greater than 
the force of any nation now engaged in any 
alliance hitherto formed or projected that no 
nation, no probable combination of nations, 
could face or withstand it. 

If the peace presently to be made is to en- 
dure it must be a peace made secure by the 
organized major force of mankind. 

The terms of the immediate peace agreed 
upon will determine whether it is a peace for 
which such a guarantee can be secured. The 
question upon which the whole future peace 
and policy of the world depends is this: 

Is the present war a struggle for a just and 
secure peace or only for a new balance of 
power? If it be only a struggle for a new bal- 
ance of power, who will guarantee, who can 
guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new 
arrangement ? 

NO VICTORY FOR EITHER SIDE 

Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable 
Europe. There must be not only a balance of 
power, but a community of power ; not organ- 
ized rivalries, but an organized common peace. 

Fortunately, we have received very explicit 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

assurances on this point. The statesmen of 
both of the groups of nations now arrayed 
against one another have said, in terms that 
could not be misinterpreted, that it was no 
part of the purpose they had in mind to crush 
their antagonists. But the implications of 
these assurances may not be equally clear to 
all — may not be the same on both sides of the 
water. I think it will be serviceable if I at- 
tempt to set forth what we understand them 
to be. 

They imply, first of all, that it must be a 
peace without victory. It is not pleasant to 
say this. I beg that I may be permitted to 
put my own interpretation upon it and that it 
may be understood that no other interpretation 
was in my thought. 

I am seeking only to face realities and to 
face them without soft concealments. Victory 
would mean peace forced upon the loser, a 
victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. 
It would be accepted in humiliation, under 
duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would 
leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory, 
upon which terms of peace would rest, not 
permanently, but only as upon quicksand. 

Only a peace between equals can last; only 
a peace the very principle of which is equality 
and a common participation in a common 

9 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

benefit. The right state of mind, the right 
feeling between nations, is as necessary for a 
lasting peace as is the just settlement of ques- 
tions of territory or of racial and national 
allegiance. 

MUST EQUALIZE RIGHTS OF NATIONS 

The equality of nations upon which peace 
must be founded, if it is to last, must be an 
equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged 
must neither recognize nor imply a difference 
between big nations and small, between those 
that are powerful and those that are weak. 

Right must be based upon the common 
strength, not upon the individual strength, of 
the nations upon whose concert peace will 
depend. 

Equality of territory or of resources there, 
of course, cannot be; nor any other sort of 
equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful 
and legitimate development of the peoples 
themselves. But no one asks or expects any- 
thing more than an equality of rights. Man- 
kind is looking now for freedom of life, not 
for equipoises of power. 

And there is a deeper thing involved than 
even equality of rights among organized na- 
tions. No peace can last, or ought to last, 
10 






WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

which does not recognize and accept the princi- 
ple that Governments derive all their just 
powers from the consent of the governed, and 
that no right anywhere exists to hand people 
about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if 
they were property. 

I take it for granted, for instance, if I may 
venture upon a single example, that statesmen 
everywhere are agreed that there should be a 
united, independent, and autonomous Poland, 
and that henceforth inviolable security of life, 
of worship, and of industrial and social devel- 
opment should be guaranteed to all peoples 
who have lived hitherto under the power of 
Governments devoted to a faith and purpose 
hostile to their own. 

I speak of this, not because of any desire to 
exalt an abstract political principle which has 
always been held very dear by those who have 
sought to build up liberty in America, but for 
the same reason that I have spoken of the 
other conditions of peace which seem to me 
clearly indispensable — because I wish frankly 
to uncover realities. 

CRUSHED PEOPLES WILL REVOLT 

Any peace which does not recognize and 
accept this principle will inevitably be upset, 
ii 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

It will not rest upon the affections or the con- 
victions of mankind. The ferment of spirit of 
whole populations will fight subtly and con- 
stantly against it, and all the world will sym- 
pathize. The world can be at peace only if its 
life is stable, and there can be no stability 
where the will is in rebellion, where there is not 
tranquillity of spirit and a sense of justice, of 
freedom, and of right. 

So far as practicable, moreover, every great 
people now struggling toward a full develop- 
ment of its resources and of its powers should 
be assured a direct outlet to the great high- 
ways of the sea. Where this cannot be done 
by the cession of territory, it can no doubt 
be done by the neutralization of direct rights 
of way under the general guarantee which will 
assure the peace itself. With a right comity 
of arrangement no nation need be shut away 
from free access to the open paths of the 
world's commerce. 

And the paths of the sea must alike in law 
and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas 
is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and co- 
operation. 

No doubt a somewhat radical reconsidera- 
tion of many of the rules of international 
practice hitherto sought to be established may 
be necessary in order to make the seas indeed 

12 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

free and common in practically all circum- 
stances for the use of mankind, but the motive 
for such changes is convincing and compelling. 
There can be no trust or intimacy between 
the peoples of the world without them. 

The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse 
of nations is an essential part of the process of 
peace and of development. It need not be 
difficult to define or to secure the freedom of 
the seas if the Governments of the world sin- 
cerely desire to come to an agreement concern- 
ing it. 

REQUIRES LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS 

It is a problem closely connected with the 
limitation of naval armaments and the co- 
operation of the navies of the world in keeping 
the seas at once free and safe. And the ques- 
tion of limiting naval armaments opens the 
wider and perhaps more difficult question of 
the limitation of armies and of all programs 
of military preparation. 

Difficult and delicate as these questions are, 
they must be faced with the utmost candor 
and decided in a spirit of real accommodation 
if peace is to come with healing in its wings 
and come to stay. Peace cannot be had with- 
out concession and sacrifice. There can be 
13 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

no sense of safety and equality among the 
nations if great preponderating armies are 
henceforth to continue here and there to be 
built up and maintained. 

The statesmen of the world must plan for 
peace, and nations must adjust and accommo- 
date their policy to it as they have planned 
for war and made ready for pitiless contest and 
rivalry. The question of armaments, whether 
on land or sea, is the most immediately and 
intensely practical question connected with the 
future fortunes of nations and of mankind. 

I have spoken upon these great matters 
without reserve and with the utmost explicit- 
ness because it has seemed to me to be neces- 
sary if the world's yearning desire for peace 
was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. 
Perhaps I am the only person in high authority 
among all the peoples of the world who is at 
liberty to speak and hold nothing back. 

I am speaking as an individual, and yet I 
am speaking also, of course, as the responsible 
head of a great Government, and I feel con- 
fident that I have said what the people of the 
United States would wish me to say. May I 
not add that I hope and believe that I am in 
effect speaking for liberals and friends of hu- 
manity in every nation and of every program 
of liberty? 

14 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

I would fain believe that I am speaking for 
the silent mass of mankind everywhere who 
have as yet had no place or opportunity to 
speak their real hearts out concerning the death 
and ruin they see to have come already upon 
the persons and the homes they hold most dear. 



SEES WORLD-WIDE MONROE DOCTRINE 

And in holding out the expectation that the 
people and Government of the United States 
will join the other civilized nations of the world 
in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon 
such terms as I have named, I speak with 
the greater boldness and confidence because 
it is clear to every man who can think that 
there is in this promise no breach in either our 
traditions or our policy as a nation, but a ful- 
filment, rather, of all that we have professed 
or striven for. 

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations 
should with one accord adopt the doctrine of 
President Monroe as the doctrine of the 
world; that no nation should seek to extend 
its policy over any other nation or people, but 
that every people should be left free to deter- 
mine its own policy, its own way of develop- 
ment, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the 
little along with the great and powerful. 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

I am proposing that all nations henceforth 
avoid entangling alliances which would draw 
them into competitions of power, catch them 
in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and dis- 
turb their own affairs with influences intruded 
from without. There is no entangling alliance 
in a concert of power. When all unite to act 
in the same sense and with the same purpose, 
all act in the common interest and are free 
to live their own lives under a common pro- 
tection. 

I am proposing government by the consent 
of the governed; that freedom of the seas 
which in international conference after con- 
ference representatives of the United States 
have urged with the eloquence of those who 
are the convinced disciples of liberty; and 
that moderation of armaments which makes 
of armies and navies a power for order merely, 
not an instrument of aggression or of selfish 
violence. 

These are American principles, American 
policies. We can stand for no others. And 
they are also the principles and policies of for- 
ward-looking men and women everywhere, of 
every modern nation, of every enlightened 
community. They are the principles of man- 
kind, and must prevail. 



II 

THE SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC 
RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 

Message to the Congress 
February 3, igiy 



II 

severance of relations 

Gentlemen of the Congress: 

The Imperial German Government, on the 
31st of January, announced to this Govern- 
ment and to the Governments of the other 
neutral nations that on and after the first day 
of February, the present month, it would 
adopt a policy with regard to the use of sub- 
marines against all shipping seeking to pass 
through certain designated areas of the high 
seas to which it is clearly my duty to call your 
attention. 

Let me remind the Congress that on the 
1 8th of April last, in view of the sinking on the 
24th of March of the cross- Channel passenger- 
steamer Sussex by a German submarine, with- 
out summons or warning, and the consequent 
loss of the lives of several citizens of the United 
States who were passengers aboard her, this 
Government addressed a note to the Imperial 
19 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

German Government in which it made the 
following declaration: 

If it is still the purpose of the Imperial German 
Government to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate 
warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of sub- 
marines without regard to what the Government of the 
United States must consider the sacred and indisputable 
rules of international law and the universally recognized 
dictates of humanity, the Government of the United 
States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but 
one course it can pursue. Unless the German Govern- 
ment should now immediately declare and effect an 
abandonment of its present methods of submarine war- 
fare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels the 
Government of the United States can have no choice 
but to sever diplomatic relations with the German 
Empire altogether. 



Germany's u-boat pledge 

In reply to this declaration the German 
Government gave this Government the fol- 
lowing assurances : 

The German Government is prepared to do its ut- 
most to confine the operations of war for the rest of 
its duration to the fighting forces of the belligerents, 
thereby insuring the freedom of the seas, a principle 
upon which the German Government believes, now 
as before, to be in agreement with the Government 
of the United States. 

The German Government, guided by this idea, notifies 
20 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

the Government of the United States that the German 
naval forces have received the following orders: 

In accordance with the general principles of visit and 
search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized 
by international law, such vessels, both within and with- 
out the area declared as naval war zone, shall not be 
sunk without warning and without saving human lives, 
unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance. 

But neutrals cannot expect that Germany, forced to 
fight for her existence, shall, for the sake of neutral 
interest, restrict the use of an effective weapon if her 
enemy is permitted to continue to apply at will methods 
of warfare violating the rules of international law. Such 
a demand would be incompatible with the character of 
neutrality, and the German Government is convinced 
that the Government of the United States does not think 
of making such a demand, knowing that the Government 
of the United States has repeatedly declared that it is 
determined to restore the principle of the freedom of 
the seas from whatever quarter it has been violated. 



HOW THE UNITED STATES REPLIED 

To this the Government of the United 
States replied on the 8th of May, accepting, 
of course, the assurances given, but adding: 

The Government of the United States feels it necessary 
to state that it takes it for granted that the Imperial 
German Government does not intend to imply that the 
maintenance of its newly announced policy is in any 
way contingent upon the course or result of diplomatic 
negotiations between the Government of the United 

3 21 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

States and any other belligerent Government, notwith- 
standing the fact that certain passages in the Imperial 
Government's note of the 4th instant might appear 
to be susceptible to that construction. In order, however, 
to avoid any possible misunderstanding, the Government 
of the United States notifies the Imperial Government 
that it cannot for a moment entertain, much less discuss, 
a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities 
for the rights of citizens of the United States upon the 
high seas should in any way or in the slightest degree 
be made contingent upon the conduct of any other Gov- 
ernment affecting the rights of neutrals and non-com- 
batants. Responsibility in such matters is single, not 
joint; absolute, not relative. 

To this note of the 8th of May the Imperial 
German Government made no reply. 

On the 31st of January, the Wednesday of 
the present week, the German Ambassador 
handed to the Secretary of State, along with a 
formal note, a memorandum which contains 
the following statement: 



GERMANY S NEW POLICY 

The Imperial Government, therefore, does not doubt 
that the Government of the United States will under- 
stand the situation thus forced upon Germany by the 
Entente Allies' brutal methods of war and by their de- 
termination to destroy the Central Powers, and that the 
Government of the United States will further realize 
that the now openly disclosed intentions of the Entente 
Allies give back to Germany the freedom of action which 
22 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

she reserved in her note addressed to the Government 
of the United States on May 4, 1916. 

Under these circumstances Germany will meet the 
illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly preventing, 
after February i, 191 7, in a zone around Great Britain, 
France, Italy, and in the eastern Mediterranean all 
navigation, that of neutrals included, from and to France, 
etc. All ships met within the zone will be sunk. 

I think that you will agree with me that, 
in view of this declaration, which suddenly and 
without prior intimation of any kind deliber- 
ately withdraws the solemn assurance given 
in the Imperial Government's note of the 
4th of May, 1916, this Government has no 
alternative consistent with the -dignity and 
honor of the United States but to take the 
course which, in its note of the 18th of April, 
1 91 6, it announced that it would take in the 
event that the German Government did not 
declare and effect an abandonment of the 
methods of submarine warfare which it was 
then employing and to which it now purposes 
again to resort. 

ALL RELATIONS BROKEN OFF 

I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of 
State to announce to his Excellency the Ger- 
man ambassador that all diplomatic relations 
between the United States and the German 
23 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

Empire are severed, and that the American 
ambassador at Berlin will immediately be 
withdrawn, and, in accordance with this deci- 
sion, to hand to his Excellency his passports. 

Notwithstanding this unexpected action of 
the German Government, this sudden and 
deeply deplorable renunciation of its assur- 
ances, given this Government at one of the 
most critical moments of tension in the rela- 
tions of the two Governments, I refuse to 
believe that it is the intention of the German 
authorities to do in fact what they have warned 
us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot 
bring myself to believe that they will indeed 
pay no regard to the ancient friendship be- 
tween their people and our own or to the sol- 
emn obligations which have been exchanged 
between them and destroy American ships 
and take the lives of American citizens in the 
wilful prosecution of the ruthless naval pro- 
gram they have announced their intention to 
adopt. 

Only actual overt acts on their part can 
make me believe it even now. 



WILL PROTECT AMERICAN RIGHTS 

If this inveterate confidence on my part in 
the sobriety and prudent foresight of their 
24 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

purpose should unhappily prove unfounded, 
if American ships and American lives should, 
in fact, be sacrificed by their naval commanders 
in heedless contravention of the just and rea- 
sonable understandings of international law 
and the obvious dictates of humanity, I shall 
take the liberty of coming again before the 
Congress to ask that authority be given me 
to use any means that may be necessary 
for the protection of our seamen and our 
people in the prosecution of their peaceful 
and legitimate errands on the high seas. I 
can do nothing less. I take it for granted 
that all neutral Governments will take the 
same course. 

I do not desire any hostile conflict with the 
Imperial German Government. We are the 
sincere friends of the German people and 
earnestly desire to remain at peace with the 
Government which speaks for them. We shall 
not believe that they are hostile to us until 
we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose 
nothing more than the reasonable defense of 
the undoubted rights of our people. We wish 
to serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to 
stand true alike in thought and in action to 
the immemorial principles of our people which 
I sought to express in my address to the 
Senate only two weeks ago — seek merely to 
25 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

vindicate our right to liberty and justice and 
an unmolested life. These are bases of peace, 
not war. God grant we may not be challenged 
to defend them by acts of wilful injustice on 
the part of the Government of Germany. 



Ill 

REQUEST FOR A GRANT OF POWER 

Message to the Congress 
February 26 ; , iqij 



Ill 

request for a grant of power 

Gentlemen of the Congress: 

I have again asked the privilege of addressing 
you because we are moving through critical 
times, during which it seems to me to be 
my duty to keep in close touch with the 
Houses of Congress so that neither counsel nor 
action shall run at cross-purposes between us. 

On the 3d of February I officially informed 
you of the sudden and unexpected action of 
the Imperial German Government in declaring 
its intention to disregard the promises it had 
made to this Government in April last and 
undertake immediate submarine operations 
against all commerce, whether of belligerents 
or of neutrals, that should seek to approach 
Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts 
of Europe, or the harbors of the eastern Med- 
iterranean, and to conduct those operations 
without regard to the established restrictions 
of international practice, without regard to 
29 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

any considerations of humanity, even, which 
might interfere with their object. 



AMERICAN COMMERCE SUFFERS, BUT OTHER 
NEUTRALS FARE WORSE 

That policy was forthwith put into practice. 
It has now been in active exhibition for nearly 
four weeks. Its practical results are not fully 
disclosed. The commerce of other neutral 
nations is suffering severely, but not, perhaps, 
very much more severely than it was already 
suffering before the ist of February, when 
the new policy of the Imperial Government 
was put into operation. 

We have asked the co-operation of the other 
neutral Governments to prevent these depre- 
dations, but I fear none of them has thought 
it wise to join us in any common course of 
action. Our own commerce has suffered, is 
suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, 
rather because so many of our ships are tim- 
idly keeping to their home ports than because 
American ships have been sunk. 

Two American vessels have been sunk, the 
Housatonic and the Lyman M. Law. The case 
of the Housatonic, which was carrying food- 
stuffs consigned to a London firm, was essen- 
tially like the case of the Frye, in which, it will 
30 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

be recalled, the German Government admitted 
its liability for damages, and the lives of the 
crew, as in the case of the Frye, were safe- 
guarded with reasonable care. 



THE RUTHLESS SINKING OF SCHOONER 
" LYMAN M. LAW" 

The case of the Law, which was carrying 
lemon-box staves to Palermo, disclosed a 
ruthlessness of method which deserves grave 
condemnation, but was accompanied by no 
circumstances which might not have been ex- 
pected at any time in connection with the use 
of the submarine against merchantmen as the 
German Government has used it. 

In sum, therefore, the situation we find our- 
selves in with regard to the actual conduct 
of the German submarine warfare against 
commerce and its effects upon our own ships 
and people is substantially the same that it 
was when I addressed you on the 3d of 
February, except for the tying up of our ship- 
ping in our own ports because of the unwilling- 
ness of our ship-owners to risk their vessels at 
sea without insurance or adequate protection, 
and the very serious congestion of our commerce 
which has resulted, a congestion which is grow- 
ing rapidly more and more serious every day. 
31 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

This in itself might presently accomplish, 
in effect, what the new German submarine 
orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we 
are concerned. We can only say, therefore, 
that the overt act which I have ventured to 
hope the German commanders would in fact 
avoid has not occurred. 

SPARED BY CIRCUMSTANCES NOT BY 
INSTRUCTIONS 

But while this is happily true, it must be 
admitted that there have been certain addi- 
tional indications and expressions of purpose 
on the part of the German press and the Ger- 
man authorities which have increased rather 
than lessened the impression that if our ships 
and our people are spared it will be because of 
fortunate circumstances or because the com- 
manders of the German submarines which they 
may happen to encounter exercise an unex- 
pected discretion and restraint, rather than 
because of the instructions under which those 
commanders are acting. 

It would be foolish to deny that the situation 
is fraught with the gravest possibilities and 
dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see 
that the necessity for definite action may come 
at any time, if we are in fact, and not in word 
32 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

merely, to defend our elementary rights as a 
neutral nation. It would be most imprudent 
to be unprepared. 

I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful 
of the fact that the expiration of the term of 
the present Congress is immediately at hand 
by constitutional limitation, and that it would 
in all likelihood require an unusual length of 
time to assemble and organize the Congress 
which is to succeed it. 



MAY NEED THE AUTHORITY TO ACT ANY MOMENT 

I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to 
obtain from you full and immediate assurance 
of the authority which I may need at any 
moment to exercise. No doubt I already pos- 
sess that authority without special warrant of 
law by the plain implication of my constitu- 
tional duties and powers, but I prefer in the 
present circumstances not to act upon general 
implication. I wish to feel that the authority 
and the power of the Congress are behind me 
in whatever it may become necessary for me 
to do. We are jointly the servants of the 
people and must act together and in their 
spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it. 

No one doubts what it is our duty to do. 
We must defend our commerce and the lives 
33 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

of our people in the midst of the present trying 
circumstances with discretion, but with clear 
and steadfast purpose. Only the method and 
the extent remain to be chosen upon the oc- 
casion, if occasion should indeed arise. 

Since it has unhappily proved impossible 
to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic 
means against the unwarranted infringements 
they are suffering at the hands of Germany, 
there may be no recourse but to armed neu- 
trality, which we shall know how to maintain 
and for which there is abundant American 
precedent. 

NOT CONTEMPLATING WAR, BUT WANTS TO BE 
READY 

It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not 
be necessary to put armed forces anywhere 
into action. The American people do not de- 
sire it, and our desire is not different from 
theirs. I am sure that they will understand 
the spirit in which I am now acting, the pur- 
pose I hold nearest my heart, and would wish 
to exhibit in everything I do. I am anxious 
that the people of the nations at war also 
should understand and not mistrust us. 

I hope that I need give no further proofs 
and assurances than I have already given 
34 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

throughout nearly three years of anxious pa- 
tience that I am the friend of peace, and mean 
to preserve it for America so long as I am able. 

I am not now proposing or contemplating 
war, or any steps that lead to it. I merely 
request that you will accord me by your own 
vote and definite bestowal the means and the 
authority to safeguard in practice the right of 
a great people, who are at peace and who are 
desirous of exercising none but the rights of 
peace, to follow the pursuit of peace in quiet- 
ness and good-will — rights recognized time out 
of mind by all the civilized nations of the world. 

No course of my choosing or of theirs will 
lead to war. War can come only by the wilful 
acts and aggressions of others. 

ASKS POWER TO ARM SHIPS AND TO USE OTHER 

MEANS 

You will understand why I can make no 
definite proposals or forecasts of action now, 
and must ask for your supporting authority in 
the most general terms. The form in which 
action may become necessary cannot yet be 
foreseen. I believe that the people will be 
willing to trust me to act with restraint, with 
prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and 
good faith that they have themselves displayed 
35 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

throughout these trying months; and it is in 
that belief that I request that you will author- 
ize me to supply our merchant-ships with de- 
fensive arms should that become necessary, 
and with the means of using them, and to 
employ any other instrumentalities or methods 
that may be necessary and adequate to protect 
our ships and our people in their legitimate and 
peaceful pursuits of the seas. 

I request also that you will grant me at the 
same time, along with the powers I ask, a 
sufficient credit to enable me to provide ade- 
quate means of protection where they are 
lacking, including adequate insurance against 
the present war risks. 

I have spoken of our commerce and of the 
legitimate errands of our people on the seas, 
but you will not be misled as to my main 
thought, the thought that lies beneath these 
phrases and gives them dignity and weight. 

CIVILIZATION AT STAKE IN ATTACK ON HUMAN 
RIGHTS 

It is not of material interest merely that we 
are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental 
human rights, chief of all the right of life itself. 
I am thinking not only of the rights of Amer- 
icans to go and come about their proper busi- 
36 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

ness by way of the sea, but also of something 
much deeper, much more fundamental than 
that. I am thinking of those rights of human- 
ity without which there is no civilization. My 
theme is of those great principles of compassion 
and of protection which mankind has sought 
to throw about human lives — the lives of non- 
combatants, the lives of men who are peace- 
fully at work keeping the industrial processes 
of the world quick and vital, the lives of 
women and children, and of those who sup- 
ply the labor which ministers to their suste- 
nance. 

We are speaking of no selfish material 
rights, but of rights which our hearts support, 
and whose foundation is that righteous passion 
for justice upon which all law, all structures 
alike of family, of state, and of mankind must 
rest, and upon the ultimate base of our exist- 
ence and our liberty. I cannot imagine any 
man with American principles at his heart 
hesitating to defend these things. 



IV 

WE MUST ACCEPT WAR 

Message to the Congress 
April 2, IQ17 



IV 

WE MUST ACCEPT WAR 

Gentlemen of the Congress: 

I have called the Congress into extraordinary 
session because there are serious, very serious, 
choices of policy to be made, and made imme- 
diately, which it was neither right nor con- 
stitutionally permissible that I should assume 
the responsibility of making. 

On the 3d of February last I officially laid 
before you the extraordinary announcement of 
the Imperial German Government that on 
and after the first day of February it was its 
purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of 
humanity and use its submarines to sink every 
vessel that sought to approach either the ports 
of Great Britain and Ireland or the western 
coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled 
by the enemies of Germany within the Med- 
iterranean. That had seemed to be the object 
of the German submarine warfare earlier in the 
war, but since April of last year the Imperial 
41 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

Government had somewhat restrained the 
commanders of its undersea craft in conformity 
with its promise then given to us that passen- 
ger-boats should not be sunk, and that due 
warning would be given to all other vessels 
which its submarines might seek to destroy 
when no resistance was offered or escape at- 
tempted, and care taken that their crews were 
given at least a fair chance to save their lives 
in their open boats. 

The precautions taken were meager and hap- 
hazard enough, as was proved in distressing 
instance after instance in the progress of the 
cruel and unmanly business, but a certain 
degree of restraint was observed. 



GERMANY S RUTHLESS POLICY 

The new policy has swept every restriction 
aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their 
flag, their character, their cargo, their destina- 
tion, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to 
the bottom without warning, and without 
thought of help or mercy for those oft board, 
the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those 
of belligerents. Even hospital-ships and ships 
carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and 
stricken people of Belgium, though the latter 
were provided with safe conduct through the 
42 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

proscribed areas by the German Government 
itself and were distinguished by unmistakable 
marks of identity, have been sunk with the 
same reckless lack of compassion or of prin- 
ciple. 

I was for a little while unable to believe that 
such things would, in fact, be done by any 
Government that had hitherto subscribed to 
the humane practices of civilized nations. 
International law had its origin in the attempt 
to set up some law which would be respected 
and observed upon the seas, where no nation 
had right of dominion, and where lay the free 
highways of the world. By painful stage after 
stage has that law been built up with meager 
enough results, indeed, after all was accom- 
plished that could be accomplished, but al- 
ways with a clear view at least of what the 
heart and conscience of mankind demanded. 

This minimum of right the German Govern- 
ment has swept aside under the plea of retalia- 
tion and necessity, and because it had no 
weapons which it could use at sea except these, 
which it is impossible to employ as it is em- 
ploying them without throwing to the winds 
all scruples of humanity or of respect for the 
understandings that were supposed to underlie 
the intercourse of the world. 

I am not now thinking of the loss of property 
43 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

involved, immense and serious as that is, but 
only of the wanton and wholesale destruction 
of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, 
and children engaged in pursuits which have 
always, even in the darkest periods of modern 
history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. 
Property can be paid for; the lives of peace- 
ful and innocent people cannot be. 

GERMAN WARFARE AGAINST MANKIND 

The present German warfare against com- 
merce is a warfare against mankind. It is a 
war against all nations. American ships have 
been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which 
it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but 
the ships and people of other neutral and 
friendly nations have been sunk and over- 
whelmed in the waters in the same way. There 
has been no discrimination. The challenge is 
to all mankind. Each nation must decide for 
itself how it will meet it. The choice we make 
for ourselves must be made with a moderation 
of counsel and a temperateness of judgment 
befitting our character and our motives as a 
nation. We must put excited feeling away. 

Our motive will not be revenge or the vic- 
torious assertion of the physical might of the 
nation, but only the vindication of right, of 
44 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

human right, of which we are only a single 
champion. 

When I addressed the Congress on the 
26th of February last I thought that it would 
suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, 
our right to use the seas against unlawful 
interference, our right to keep our people safe 
against unlawful violence. But armed neu- 
trality, it now appears, is impracticable. Be- 
cause submarines are in effect outlaws when 
used as the German submarines have been 
used against merchant shipping, it is impossi- 
ble to defend ships against their attacks as the 
law of nations has assumed that merchantmen 
would defend themselves against privateers or 
cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the 
open sea. 

It is common prudence in such circum- 
stances, grim necessity, indeed, to endeavor to 
destroy them before they have shown their 
own intention. They must be dealt with upon 
sight, if dealt with at all. 

The German Government denies the right 
of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas 
of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the 
defense of rights which no modern publicist 
has ever before questioned their right to de- 
fend. The intimation is conveyed that the 
armed guards which we have placed on our 
45 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

merchant-ships will be treated as beyond the 
pale of law and subject to be dealt with as 
pirates would be. 

Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at 
best ; in such circumstances and in the face of 
such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; 
it is likely to produce what it was meant to 
prevent; it is practically certain to draw us 
into the war without either the rights or the 
effectiveness of belligerents. 

There is one choice we cannot make, we are 
incapable of making: we will not choose the 
path of submission and suffer the most sacred 
rights of our nation and our people to be 
ignored or violated. The wrongs against which 
we now array ourselves are not common 
wrongs; they reach out to the very roots of 
human life. 

BELLIGERENCY THRUST UPON US 

With a profound sense of the solemn and 
even tragical character of the step I am taking 
and of the grave responsibilities which it in- 
volves, but in unhesitating obedience to what 
I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that 
the Congress declare the recent course of the 
Imperial German Government to be in fact 
nothing less than war against the Government 
46 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

and people of the United States. That it 
formally accept the status of belligerent which 
has thus been thrust upon it and that it take 
immediate steps not only to put the country 
in a more thorough state of defense, but also 
to exert all its power and employ all its re- 
sources to bring the Government of the German 
Empire to terms and end the war. 

WHAT THIS WILL INVOLVE 

What this will involve is clear. It will in- 
volve the utmost practicable co-operation in 
counsel and action with the Governments now 
at war with Germany, and as incident to that 
the extension to those Governments of the 
most liberal financial credits in order that our 
resources may so far as possible be added to 
theirs. 

It will involve the organization and mobili- 
zation of all the material resources of the 
country to supply the materials of war and 
serve the incidental needs of the nation in the 
most abundant and yet the most economical 
and efficient way possible. 

It will involve the immediate full equipment 
of the navy in all respects, but particularly in 
supplying it with the best means of dealing 
with the enemy's submarines. 
47 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

It will involve the immediate addition to the 
armed forces of the United States already pro- 
vided for by law in case of war at least 
500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be 
chosen upon the principle of universal liabil- 
ity to service, and also the authorization of 
subsequent additional increments of equal 
force so soon as they may be needed and can 
be handled in training. 

It will involve also, of course, the granting 
of adequate credits to the Government, sus- 
tained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be 
sustained by the present generation, by well- 
conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as 
may be equitable by taxation because it seems 
to me that it would be most unwise to base 
the credits which will now be necessary en- 
tirely on money borrowed. 

It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to 
protect our people so far as we may against 
the very serious hardships and evils which 
would be likely to arise out of the inflation 
which would be produced by vast loans. 

In carrying out the measures by which these 
things are to be accomplished we should keep 
constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering 
as little as possible in our own preparation and 
in the equipment of our own military forces 
with the duty — for it will be a very practical 
48 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

duty — of supplying the nations already at war 
with Germany with the materials which they 
can obtain only from us or by our assistance. 
They are in the field and we should help them 
in every way to be effective there. 

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through 
the several executive departments of the Gov- 
ernment, for the consideration of your com- 
mittees measures for the accomplishment of 
the several objects I have mentioned. I hope 
that it will be your pleasure to deal with them 
as having been framed after very careful 
thought by the branch of the Government 
upon which the responsibility of conducting 
the war and safeguarding the nation will most 
directly fall. 

OUR MOTIVES AND OBJECTS 

While we do these things, these deeply mo- 
mentous things, let us be very clear and make 
very clear to all the world what our motives 
and our objects are. My own thought has 
not been driven from its habitual and normal 
course by the unhappy events of the last two 
months, and I do not believe that the thought 
of the nation has been altered or clouded by 
them. 

I have exactly the same thing in mind now 
49 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate 
on the 2 2d of January last; the same that I 
had in mind when I addressed the Congress 
on the 3d of February and on the 26th of 
February. 

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the 
principles of peace and the justice in the life 
of the world as against selfish and autocratic 
power and to set up amongst the really free and 
self-governed peoples of the world such a con- 
cert of purpose and of action as will henceforth 
insure the observance of those principles. 

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable 
where the peace of the world is involved and 
the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to 
that peace and freedom lies in the existence 
of autocratic Governments backed by organ- 
ized force which is controlled wholly by their 
will, not by the will of their people. We have 
seen the last of neutrality in such circum- 
stances. 

We are at the beginning of an age in which 
it will be insisted that the same standards of 
conduct and of responsibility for wrong done 
shall be observed among nations and their 
Governments that are observed among the 
individual citizens of civilized states. 

We have no quarrel with the German peo- 
ple. We have no feeling toward them but one 
50 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon 
their impulse that their Government acted in 
entering this war. It was not with their pre- 
vious knowledge or approval. 

It was a war determined upon as wars used 
to be determined upon in the old, unhappy 
days when peoples were nowhere consulted 
by their rulers and wars were provoked 
and waged in the interest of dynasties or 
of little groups of ambitious men who were 
accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns 
and tools. 

Self-governed nations do not fill their neigh- 
bor states with spies or set the course of 
intrigue to bring about some critical post- 
ure of affairs which will give them an op- 
portunity to strike and make conquest. Such 
designs can be successfully worked only under 
cover and where no one has the right to ask 
questions. 

Cunningly contrived plans of deception or 
aggression, carried, it may be, from generation 
to generation, can be worked out and kept 
from the light only within the privacy of 
courts or behind the carefully guarded con- 
fidences of a narrow and privileged class. They 
are happily impossible where public opinion 
commands and insists upon full information 
concerning all the nation's affairs. 
5i 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

PEACE THROUGH FREE PEOPLES 

A steadfast concert for peace can never be 
maintained except by a partnership of demo- 
cratic nations. No autocratic Government 
could be trusted to keep faith within it or ob- 
serve its covenants. It must be a league of 
honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue 
would eat its vitals away, the plottings of inner 
circles who could plan what they would and 
render account to no one would be a corruption 
seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can 
hold their purpose and their honor steady to a 
common end and prefer the interests of man- 
kind to any narrow interest of their own. 

Does not every American feel that assur- 
ance has been added to our hope for the future 
peace of the world by the wonderful and heart- 
ening things that have been happening within 
the last few weeks in Russia? 

Russia was known by those who know it 
best to have been always in fact democratic at 
heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in 
all the intimate relationships of her people that 
spoke their natural instinct, their habitual 
attitude toward life. 

Autocracy that crowned the summit of her 
political structure, long as it had stood and 
terrible as was the reality of its power, was 
52 



Statement given to th 



W 
The Department of State 
statement to all foreign mis< 
information : 

In view of the announcer) 
Government on January 31, 
neutrals included, met with 
seas, would be sunk without 
for the safety of the person 
exercise of visit and search, t 
States has determined to pi 
chant vessels sailing throug 
guard for the protection of 
the persons on board. 

85582—17 



>ress March 12, 1917, 

PARTMENT OF STATE, 

lington, March 12, 1917. 
s to-day sent the following 
as in Washington for their 

Lt of the Imperial German 
>17, that all ships, those of 
certain zones of the high 
ly precautions being taken 
an board, and without the 
Government of the United 
b upon all American mer- 
ihe barred areas an armed 
le vessels and the lives of 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

not in fact Russian in origin, in character or 
purpose; and now it has been shaken and the 
great, generous Russian people have been 
added, in all their native majesty and- might, to 
the forces that are fighting for freedom in the 
world, for justice and for peace. Here is a fit 
partner for a league of honor. 

One of the things that have served to con- 
vince us that the Prussian autocracy was not 
and could never be our friend is that from the 
very outset of the present war it has filled our 
unsuspecting communities and even our offices 
of Government with spies and set criminal 
intrigues everywhere afoot against our na- 
tional unity of council, our peace within and 
without, our industries and our commerce. 

Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were 
here even before the war began, and it is, un- 
happily, not a matter of conjecture, but a fact 
proved in our courts of justice, that the in- 
trigues which have more than once come per- 
ilously near to disturbing the peace and dislo- 
cating the industries of the country have been 
carried on at the instigation, with the support, 
and even under the personal direction, of offi- 
cial agents of the Imperial German Govern- 
ment accredited to the Government of the 
United States. 

Even in checking these things and trying to 

5 S3 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

extirpate them we have sought to put the most 
generous interpretation possible upon them be- 
cause we knew that their source lay, not in 
any hostile feeling or purpose of the German 
people toward us (who were, no doubt, as 
ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but 
only in the selfish designs of a Government that 
did what it pleased and told its people nothing. 
But they have played their part in serving to 
convince us at last that that Government 
entertains no real friendship for us and means 
to act against our peace and security at its 
convenience. That it means to stir up enemies 
against us at our very doors the intercepted 
note to the German Minister at Mexico City 
is eloquent evidence. 

A CHALLENGE OF HOSTILE PURPOSE 

We are accepting this challenge of hostile 
purpose because we know that in such a Gov- 
ernment, following such methods, we can never 
have a friend; and that in the presence of its 
organized power, always lying in wait to ac- 
complish we know not what purpose, there 
can be no assured security for the democratic 
Governments of the world. 

We are now about to accept the gage of 
battle with this natural foe to liberty, and shall, 
54 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

if necessary, spend the whole force of the 
nation to check and nullify its pretensions and 
its power. We are glad, now that we see the 
facts with no veil of false pretense about them, 
to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the 
world and for the liberation of its peoples, 
the German people included; for the rights 
of nations great and small and the privilege of 
men everywhere to choose their way of life 
and of obedience. The world must be made 
safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted 
upon the trusted foundations of political 
liberty. 

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire 
no conquest, no dominion. We seek no in- 
demnities for ourselves, no material compen- 
sation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. 
We are but one of the champions of the rights 
of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those 
rights have been made as secure as the faith 
and the freedom of the nation can make them. 

Just because we fight without rancor and 
without selfish objects, seeking nothing for 
ourselves but what we shall wish to share with 
all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, con- 
duct our operations as belligerents without 
passion and ourselves observe with proud punc- 
tilio the principles of right and of fair play we 
profess to be fighting for. 
55 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

I have said nothing of the Governments al- 
lied with the Imperial Government of Germany 
because they have not made war upon us or 
challenged us to defend our right and our 
honor. 

The Austro- Hungarian Government has in- 
deed avowed its unqualified indorsement and 
acceptance of the reckless and lawless sub- 
marine warfare adopted now without disguise 
by the Imperial German Government, and it 
has therefore not been possible for this Govern- 
ment to receive Count Tarnowski, the am- 
bassador recently accredited to this Govern- 
ment by the Imperial and Royal Government 
of Austria- Hungary; but that Government 
has not actually engaged in warfare against 
citizens of the United States on the seas, and 
I take the liberty, for the present at least, of 
postponing a discussion of our relations with 
the authorities at Vienna. 

OPPOSITION TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 
FRIENDSHIP TOWARD THE GERMAN PEOPLE 

We enter this war only where we are clearly 
forced into it because there are no other means 
of defending our rights. 

It will be all the easier for us to conduct 
ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of 
56 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

right and fairness because we act without ani- 
mus, not in enmity toward a people or with the 
desire to bring any injury or disadvantage 
upon them, but only in armed opposition to an 
irresponsible Government which has thrown 
aside all considerations of humanity and of 
right and is running amuck. 

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends 
of the German people, and shall desire nothing 
so much as the early re-establishment of inti- 
mate relations of mutual advantage between 
us — however hard it may be for them, for the 
time being, to believe that this is spoken from 
our hearts. We have borne with their present 
Government through all these bitter months 
because of that friendship — exercising a pa- 
tience and forbearance which would otherwise 
have been impossible. 

We shall, happily, still have an opportunity 
to prove that friendship in our daily attitude 
and actions toward the millions of men and 
women of German birth and native sympathy 
who live amongst us and share our life, and 
we shall be proud to prove it toward all who 
are, in fact, loyal to their neighbors and to the 
Government in the hour of test. They are, 
most of them, as true and loyal Americans as 
if they had never known any other fealty or 
allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with 
57 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

us in rebuking and restraining the few who 
may be of a different mind and purpose. If 
there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with 
with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if 
it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here 
and there and without countenance except 
from a lawless and malignant few. 



RIGHT MORE PRECIOUS THAN PEACE 

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gen- 
tlemen of the Congress, which I have per- 
formed in thus addressing you. There are, it 
may be, many months of fiery trial and sacri- 
fice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead 
this great, peaceful people into war, into the 
most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civili- 
zation itself seeming to be in the balance. 
But the right is more precious than peace, and 
we shall fight for the things which we have 
always carried nearest our hearts — for de- 
mocracy, for the right of those who submit to 
authority to have a voice in their own govern- 
ments, for the rights and liberties of small 
nations, for a universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free peoples as shall bring 
peace and safety to all nations and make the 
world itself at last free. 

To such a task we can dedicate our lives 
58 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

and our fortunes, everything that we are and 
everything that we have, with the pride of 
those who know that the day has come when 
America is privileged to spend her blood and 
her might for the principles that gave her 
birth and happiness and the peace which she 
has treasured. God helping her, she can do no 
other. 



V 

A STATE OF WAR 

The President's Proclamation of 
April d, 1917 



THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION OF A STATE 
OF WAR 

Whereas, The Congress of the United States, 
in the exercise of the constitutional authority 
vested in them, have resolved by joint reso- 
lution of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, bearing date this day, that a state of war 
between the United States and the Imperial 
German Government, which has been thrust 
upon the United States, is hereby formally 
declared ; 

Whereas, It is provided by Section 4067 
of the Revised Statutes as follows: 

Whenever there is declared a war between the United 
States and any foreign nation or Government, or any 
invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted 
or threatened against the territory of the United States 
by any foreign nation or Government, and the President 
makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, 
citizens, denizens or subjects of a hostile nation or 
Government being male of the age of fourteen years and 
upward who shall be within the United States and not 

63 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

actually naturalized shall be liable to be apprehended, 
restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. 

The President is authorized in any such 
event, by his proclamation thereof or other 
public acts, to direct the conduct to be ob- 
served on the part of the United States 
toward the aliens who become so liable; the 
manner and degree of the restraint to which 
they shall be subject and in what cases and 
upon what security their residence shall be 
permitted and to provide for the removal of 
those who, not being permitted to reside within 
the United States, refuse or neglect to depart 
therefrom, and to establish any such regula- 
tions which are found necessary in the prem- 
ises and for the public safety; 

Whereas, By Sections 4068, 4069, and 4070 
of the Revised Statutes further provision is 
made relative to alien enemies; 

Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, Presi- 
dent of the United States of America, do 
hereby proclaim to all whom it may concern 
that a state of war exists between the United 
States and the Imperial German Government, 
and I do specially direct all officers, civil or 
military, of the United States that they exer- 
cise vigilance and zeal in the discharge of the 
duties incident to such a state of war, and I 
do, moreover, earnestly appeal to all American 
64 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

citizens that they, in loyal devotion to their 
country, dedicated from its foundation to the 
principles of liberty and justice, uphold the 
laws of the land and give undivided and willing 
support to those measures which may be 
adopted by the constitutional authorities in 
prosecuting the war to a successful issue and 
in obtaining a secure and just peace; 

And acting under and by virtue of the 
authority vested in me by the Constitution of 
the United States and the said sections of the 
Revised Statutes: 

I do hereby further proclaim and direct that 
the conduct to be observed on the part of the 
United States toward all natives, citizens, 
denizens, or subjects of Germany, being male, 
of the age of fourteen years and upward, who 
shall be within the United States and not 
actually naturalized, who for the purpose of 
this proclamation and under such sections of 
the Revised Statutes are termed alien enemies, 
shall be as follows : 

All alien enemies are enjoined to preserve the peace 
toward the United States and to refrain from crime 
against the public safety and from violating the laws of 
the United States and of the States and Territories 
thereof, and to refrain from actual hostility or giving in- 
formation, aid or comfort to the enemies of the United 
States, and to comply strictly with the regulations which 
are hereby or which may be from time to time promul- 

65 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

gated by the President, and so long as they shall conduct 
themselves in accordance with law they shall be undis- 
turbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupa- 
tions and be accorded the consideration due to all 
peaceful and law-abiding persons, except so far as re- 
strictions may be necessary for their own protection and 
for the safety of the United States, and toward such alien 
enemies as conduct themselves in accordance with law 
all citizens of the United States are enjoined to preserve 
the peace and to treat them with all such friendliness as 
may be compatible with loyalty and allegiance to the 
United States. 

And all alien enemies who fail to conduct themselves 
as so enjoined, in addition to all other penalties pre- 
scribed by law, shall be liable to restraint or to give 
security or to remove and depart from the United States 
in the manner prescribed by Sections 4069 and 4070 of 
the Revised Statutes and as prescribed in the regulations 
duly promulgated by the President. 

And, pursuant to the authority vested in 
me, I hereby declare and establish the following 
regulations, which I find necessary in the 
premises and for the public safety: 

First. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession 
at any time or place any firearms, weapons, or imple- 
ment of war, or component parts thereof; ammunition, 
Maxim or other silencer, arms or explosives or material 
used in the manufacture of explosives. 

Second. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession 

at any time or place, or use or operate, any aircraft 

or wireless apparatus, or any form of signaling device, 

or any form of cipher code or any paper, document 

66 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

or book written or printed in cipher, or in which there 
may be invisible writing. 

Third. All property found in the possession of an alien 
enemy in violation of the foregoing regulations shall be 
subject to seizure by the United States. 

Fourth. An alien enemy shall not approach or be 
found within one-half of a mile of any Federal or State 
fort, camp, arsenal, aircraft station, Government or 
naval vessel, navy-yard, factory or workshop for the 
manufacture of munitions of war or of any products for 
the use of the army or navy. 

Fifth. An alien enemy shall not write, print or publish 
any attack or threat against the Government or Con- 
gress of the United States, or either branch thereof, or 
against the measures or policy of the United States, or 
against the persons or property of any person in the 
military, naval or civil service of the United States, or 
of the States or Territories, or of the District of Columbia, 
or of the municipal governments therein. 

Sixth. An alien enemy shall not commit or abet any 
hostile acts against the United States, or give informa- 
tion, aid or comfort to its enemies. 

Seventh. An alien enemy shall not reside in or continue 
to reside in, to remain in or enter any locality which the 
President may from time to time designate by an execu- 
tive order as a prohibitive area in which residence by an 
alien enemy shall be found by him to constitute a danger 
to the public peace and safety of the United States except 
by permit from the President and except under such lim- 
itations or restrictions as the President may prescribe. 

Eighth. An alien enemy whom the President shall 
have reasonable cause to believe to be aiding or about to 
aid the enemy, or to be at large to the danger of the 
public peace or safety of the United States, or to have 
violated or to be about to violate any of these regulations, 

6 7 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

shall remove to any location designated by the President 
by executive order, and shall not remove therefrom with- 
out permit, or shall depart from the United States if so 
required by the President. 

Ninth. No alien enemy shall depart from the United 
States until he shall have received such permit as the 
President shall prescribe, or except under order of a 
Court, Judge or Justice, under Sections 4069 and 4070 
of the Revised Statutes. 

Tenth. No alien enemy shall land in or enter the 
United States except under such restrictions and at such 
places as the President may prescribe. 

Eleventh. If necessary to prevent violation of the 
regulations, all alien enemies will be obliged to register. 

Twelfth. An alien enemy whom there may be reason- 
able cause to believe to be aiding or about to aid the 
enemy, or to be at large to the danger of the public 
peace or safety, or who violates or who attempts to 
violate or of whom there is reasonable grounds to believe 
that he is about to violate any regulation to be promul- 
gated by the President or any criminal law of the United 
States or of the States or Territories thereof, will be 
subject to summary arrest by the United States, by the 
United States Marshal or his deputy or such other officers 
as the President shall designate, and to confinement in 
such penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or other 
place of detention as may be directed by the President. 

This proclamation and the regulations herein 
contained shall extend and apply to all land 
and water, continental or insular, in any way 
within the jurisdiction of the United States. 



VI 

"SPEAK, ACT AND SERVE 
TOGETHER' ' 

Message to the American People 
April 15, 1917 



VI 



"speak, act and serve together" 



My Fellow-Countrymen: 

The entrance of our own beloved country 
into the grim and terrible war for democracy 
and human rights which has shaken the world 
creates so many problems of national life and 
action which call for immediate consideration 
and settlement that I hope you will permit me 
to address to you a few words of earnest 
counsel and appeal with regard to them. 

We are rapidly putting our navy upon an 
effective war footing and are about to create 
and equip a great army, but these are the 
simplest parts of the great task to which we 
have addressed ourselves. There is not a 
single selfish element, so far as I can see, in 
the cause we are fighting for. We are fighting 
for what we believe and wish to be the rights 
of mankind and for the future peace and se- 
curity of the world. To do this great thing 
worthily and successfully we must devote our- 
7i 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

selves to the service without regard to profit 
or material advantage and with an energy 
and intelligence that will rise to the level of the 
enterprise itself. We must realize to the full 
how great the task is and how many things, 
how many kinds and elements of capacity and 
service and self-sacrifice it involves. 



WHAT WE MUST DO 

These, then, are the things we must do, and 
do well, besides fighting — the things without 
which mere fighting would be fruitless : 

We must supply abundant food for ourselves 
and for our armies and our seamen, not only, 
but also for a large part of the nations with 
whom we have now made common cause, in 
whose support and by whose sides we shall be 
fighting. 

We must supply ships by the hundreds out 
of our shipyards to carry to the other side of 
the sea, submarines or no submarines, what 
will every day be needed there, and abundant 
materials out of our fields and our mines and 
our factories with which not only to clothe 
and equip our own forces on land and sea, but 
also to clothe and support our people, for 
whom the gallant fellows under arms can no 
longer work; to help clothe and equip the 
72 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

armies with which we are co-operating in 
Europe, and to keep the looms and manu- 
factories there in raw material; coal to keep 
the fires going in ships at sea and in the fur- 
naces of hundreds of factories across the sea; 
steel out of which to make arms and ammuni- 
tion both here and there; rails for wornout 
railways back of the fighting fronts; locomo- 
tives and rolling-stock to take the place of 
those every day going to pieces; mules, 
horses, cattle for labor and for military service ; 
everything with which the people of England 
and France and Italy and Russia have usually 
supplied themselves, but cannot now afford 
the men, the materials or the machinery to 
make. 

GREATER EFFICIENCY 

It is evident to every thinking man that our 
industries, on the farms, in the shipyards, in 
the mines, in the factories, must be made more 
prolific and more efficient than ever, and that 
they must be more economically managed and 
better adapted to the particular requirements 
of our task than they have been; and what I 
want to say is that the men and the women 
who devote their thought and their energy to 
these things will be serving the country and 
conducting the fight for peace and freedom 
73 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

just as truly and just as effectively as the 
men on the battle-field or in the trenches. 
The industrial forces of the country, men and 
women alike, will be a great national, a great 
international, service army — a notable and 
honored host engaged in the service of the 
nation and the world, the efficient friends and 
saviors of free men everywhere. Thousands, 
nay, hundreds of thousands, of men otherwise 
liable to military service will of right and of 
necessity be excused from that service and 
assigned to the fundamental sustaining work 
of the fields and factories and mines, and they 
will be as much part of the great patriotic 
forces of the nation as the men under fire. 

I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing 
this word to the farmers of the country and to 
all who work on the farms : The supreme need 
of our own nation and of the nations with 
which we are co-operating is an abundance of 
supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The im- 
portance of an adequate food-supply, especially 
for the present year, is superlative. Without 
abundant food, alike for the armies and the 
peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise 
upon which we have embarked will break down 
and fail. The world's food reserves are low. 
Not only during the present emergency, but 
for some time after peace shall have come, 
74 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

both our own people and a large proportion of 
the people of Europe must rely upon the 
harvests in America. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE FARMERS 

Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, 
in large measure rests the fate of the war and 
the fate of the nations. May the nation not 
count upon them to omit no step that will 
increase the production of their land or that 
will bring about the most effectual co-operation 
in the sale and distribution of their products? 
The time is short. It is of the most imperative 
importance that everything possible be done, 
and done immediately, to make sure of large 
harvests. I call upon young men and old alike 
and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to 
accept and act upon this duty — to turn in 
hosts to the farms and make certain that no 
pains and no labor is lacking in this great 
matter. 

I particularly appeal to the farmers of the 
South to plant abundant foodstuffs, as well as 
cotton. They can show their patriotism in no 
better or more convincing way than by resist- 
ing the great temptation of the present price 
of cotton and helping, helping upon a great 
scale, to feed the nation and the peoples every- 
75 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

where who are fighting for their liberties and 
for our own. The variety of their crops will be 
the visible measure of their comprehension of 
their national duty. 

The Government of the United States and 
the Governments of the several States stand 
ready to co-operate. They will do everything 
possible to assist farmers in securing an ade- 
quate supply of seed, an adequate force of 
laborers when they are most needed, at har- 
vest-time, and the means of expediting ship- 
ments of fertilizers and farm machinery, as 
well as of the crops themselves when harvested. 
The course of trade shall be as unhampered as 
it is possible to make it, and there shall be no 
unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food- 
supply by those who handle it on its way to 
the consumer. This is our opportunity to 
demonstrate the efficiency of a great democ- 
racy, and we shall not fall short of it! 

THE DUTY OF MIDDLEMEN 

This let me say to the middlemen of every 
sort, whether they are handling our foodstuffs 
or the raw materials of manufacture or the 
products of our mills and factories: The eyes 
of the country will be especially upon you. 
This is your opportunity for signal service, 
76 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

efficient and disinterested. The country ex- 
pects you, as it expects all others, to forego 
unusual profits, to organize and expedite ship- 
ments of supplies of every kind, but especially 
of food, with an eye to the service you are 
rendering and in the spirit of those who enlist 
in the ranks, for their people, not for them- 
selves. I shall confidently expect you to 
deserve and win the confidence of people of 
every sort and station. 

THE MEN OF THE RAILWAYS 

To the men who run the railways of the 
country, whether they be managers or opera- 
tive employees, let me say that the railways are 
the arteries of the nation's life and that upon 
them rests the immense responsibility of seeing 
to it that those arteries suffer no obstruction 
of any kind, no inefficiency or slackened power. 
To the merchant let me suggest the motto, 
"Small profits and quick service," and to the 
shipbuilder the thought that the life of the 
war depends upon him. The food and the war 
supplies must be carried across the seas, no 
matter how many ships are sent to the bottom. 
The places of those that go down must be 
supplied, and supplied at once. To the miner 
let me say that he stands where the farmer 
77 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

does: the work of the world waits on him. 
If he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen 
are helpless. He also is enlisted in the great 
Service Army. The manufacturer does not 
need to be told, I hope, that the nation looks 
to him to speed and perfect every process; 
and I want only to remind his employees that 
their service is absolutely indispensable and is 
counted on by every man who loves the coun- 
try and its liberties. 

Let me suggest also that every one who 
creates or cultivates a garden helps, and helps 
greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of 
the nations; and that every housewife who 
practises strict economy puts herself in the 
ranks of those who serve the nation. This is 
the time for America to correct her unpardon- 
able fault of wastefulness and extravagance. 
Let every man and every woman assume the 
duty of careful, provident use and expenditure 
as a public duty, as a dictate of patriotism 
which no one can now expect ever to be ex- 
cused or forgiven for ignoring. 

THE SUPREME TEST 

In the hope that this statement of the needs 
of the nation and of the world in this hour of 
supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom it 
78 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

comes and remind all who need reminder of 
the solemn duties of a time such as the world 
has never seen before, I beg that all editors 
and publishers everywhere will give as promi- 
nent publication and as wide circulation as 
possible to this appeal. I venture to suggest 
also to all advertising agencies that they would 
perhaps render a very substantial and timely 
service to the country if they would give it 
widespread repetition. And I hope that clergy- 
men will not think the theme of it an unwor- 
thy or inappropriate subject of comment and 
homily from their pulpits. 

The supreme test of the nation has come. 
We must all speak, act and serve together! 

Woodrow Wilson. 



THE END 



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